“With Zuckerberg going full Musk last week, we can no longer let billionaires control our digital public square.” That’s the opening sentence on a website from the “Free Our Feeds” campaign. The campaign
is aiming to revolutionize social media by raising $30 million over three years to establish a public-interest foundation. The initiative is focused on supporting Bluesky’s AT Protocol—a decentralized social media standard—and building independent infrastructure to guarantee user and developer access to critical data streams.
This effort represents a bold step toward challenging the dominance of centralized platforms like Meta and X (formerly Twitter). By empowering users with control over their data and breaking free from engagement-driven algorithms, the campaign seeks to create a social media landscape rooted in transparency and public interest.
The campaign’s leadership includes prominent figures such as Eli Pariser, co-author of “The Filter Bubble,” and Mark Surman, President of the Mozilla Foundation. High-profile supporters include Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales and author Shoshana Zuboff, whose work, “The Age of Surveillance Capitalism,” underscores the dangers of Big Tech’s data practices. Their combined efforts emphasize the importance of building a fair and open digital ecosystem.
Despite its ambitious goals, critics point to significant challenges facing the decentralized model, including scalability, content moderation, and sustainable funding. Without addressing these hurdles, skeptics warn that even well-funded projects like Free Our Feeds may struggle to compete with entrenched corporate platforms. Still, the campaign’s focus on independent infrastructure marks a potentially transformative shift for the future of social media.
There’s a link to the Free Our Feeds website in the show notes.
